Hello, Mamma?

Courtesy Aly Hughes

(Several weeks ago, my cousin alerted me to a contest NPR was running. She said, "You are all over this!" With apologies to my dear cousin, a writer in her own right who humbles me with her belief in me, I did not complete this short story by the deadline. So, for your reading pleasure, may I present the contest entry I SHOULD have submitted!)

So many strangers have climbed down off'n that bus. Any more, I don't pay much mind. Some days, I don't even see it come or go. Only sign I see is the empty toilet paper roll I gotta change after they on down the road.

I still don't know what it was. A stirring in the breeze that kicked a tumbleweed across the front window of the diner? The fly buzzin' 'round the pie case that caught my eye and made me look that a-way? All I know is I looked up in time to see that door snap open, and there she was.

Pecos, NM

The bright lights of my concrete oasis had her feelin' with her feet so she wouldn't tumble on out. She stopped a minute, shivered against the desert cold, and folded in on herself trying to conserve her body heat. Sun was just peepin' over the horizon and hadn't melted the chill from the dawnin' day.

Shoot! I seen some hard luck cases come thru here. Shoot. Ain't nobody come off them buses ain't got some sad story to tell. Mostly, they on their way from one hard luck place to a harder one. She seemed outa place like she won't any more familiar with her circumstance than she was with her momentary surroundings.

She looked 'round uncertainly – waitin' to take her cue from the other nomads filin' off the bus. As the crowd headed toward the snack machines and bathrooms, she seemed to collect herself. She broke from the herd and headed toward my door.

Courtesy Mad Penguin Creative

“Mornin',” I allowed as I eyed her and the pair of flies that had joined forces makin' themselves ta home. I took my dishrag and swatted the air. The flies abandoned their pie-lust and evacuated to the safety of the front windows.

“Um..ahem..I..uh.. I was wondering if I could sit for a bit?”

“Fine by me. That bus gone roll on outa here by quarter after whether you on it or not. Next one through in two days. Nearest town fifty miles. Suit yourself.” Over the years hiding away here in this corner of nowhere, I'd gotten pretty good at warning folks off if'n they got too close.

Her sigh and shoulders both sagged as she sank onto the bar stool. She'd be gone soon enough along with her worries. I don't make small talk. I left her to her own devices.

I guess she forgot I was there 'cause it seemed like she was talking to herself. “I can handle beginnings. It's endings I don't know how to do.” Her voice trailed off for a few seconds. “I wish...I wish I coulda told them I was leaving. I just didn't know how. I couldn't take it no more..ya know. It was then or never, so I just made my decision and left before I could stop myself. I guess they'll forgive me one day......”

Pecos, NM

She looked out through the plate glass windows and shrugged a limp, weary shrug. Her face knotted up to cry, but no tears came. If I had to guess, I'd say she'd cried her tears all out a long time before she staggered down off'n that bus into my hideaway. I could tell right then, she was gonna be shrugging that shrug for the rest of her life....just like me.

The sun was beginnin' to wash the sky in daylight as the passengers stopped millin' 'round and headed back to the bus. She slipped off the stool and headed back herself. Her walk told me her feet were dragging her where her heart wasn't sure she wanted to go. She stopped, turned around, and looked at me as if she was seein' me for the first time. “Sure is peaceful around here,” she says, “Take care now.”

Courtesy Mad Penguin Creative

The air brake let off a reluctant hiss as the bus lurched back onto the ribbon of road to nowhere. I pulled a slip of paper out of my apron pocket. The creases were so deep that it would become a jigsaw puzzle any day. I ran my fingers over the numbers. Wonder if it would ring if I dialed it? My heart dragged me over to the phone despite reluctant feet that kept asking if I was sure.

My hands shook as I dialed the numbers. My heart echoed in my ears when it rang. “Hello....Mamma? Is that you? It's me...me....yea..it's me!”

Best Laid Plans

Pecos, NM - October 2001

Isn't it funny how life turns out? We decide on a course and generally head in that direction even if we look like a drunk sailor still walking on 'sea legs' as we stagger toward our stated goal. Tonight, I am again waiting for the howling of the coyotes as I ponder the path behind me and the one ahead. I think about how frustrating life has been and the preposterous events have transpired as a result of that frustration.

I guess you got the news flash that Son #1 is in Australia? Wanna know the back story? He'd been looking for a j-o-b since he was 17. There were times when he launched a full court press and would park at a retail area, go door to door making personal contact, and fill out every application given him. He did Monster.com. He even went to a support group for out-of-work professionals. Other times, he'd get discouraged and follow up leads as he got them. He did pro-bono work hoping that being busy would lead to paying work. It was the pits being a teen in need of a job during the big financial crash.

One last pic before he left.

He'd get interviews. A local fast food chain interviewed him 3 times. He was on a first name basis with the folks at a local mail/shipping store front because of business he had conducted with them. They had an opening, so he applied knowing they knew him and that he could do all they needed done. In the interview he said, “Look, I'm a college sophomore. I just need a part-time job to earn gas and spending money while I'm in school.” In the end, he couldn't BUY a job.

We finally got my sister's friend, a lady who is an executive in human resources, check out his resume. Her feedback was both gratifying and frustrating. She complimented him saying his resume looked like someone that was qualified to hold a job that would pay 10's of thousands of dollars a year. She didn't hire at the minimum wage level like fast food and retail establishments, but even her district manager would nix her hiring Son #1 because he looked over-qualified.

Sept. 2011

Well, now! If you are a homeschooling mom waiting to hear your kid made it, that was heady praise since he was not yet 21 years old. Wanna know the caveat? NO ONE WOULD HIRE HIM! Simply put: the people who COULD pay what he was worth probably wouldn't hire him because he either didn't have his degree yet OR not quite enough experience to offset the progress toward a degree.

I went to the Blue Ridge Mountain Christian Writers Conference and found out about elance.com. I heard 'web site for freelancers' and thought of Son #1. Yea. I did it. I went home and told him about it. He followed through, both of us thinking at most he'd find something he could telecommute and do around his college classes. That is...until the folks in Australia contacted him.

Telecommuting became trans-Pacific travel and the beginning of his 4^th week of employment for a children's photography company. Seems the Australians didn't care about his being only mid-way toward a degree. So, he's gone on the adventure of a lifetime and getting paid to do it. Preposterous, isn't it?

Courtesy Mad Penguin Creative

Imagine...what if he had GOTTEN that minimum wage job slinging chicken or preparing packages for shipping. We would have been one happy family – ecstatic that he had landed a job...ANY job...after 2+ years of looking. I would NEVER have told him about elance.com. Imagine....if our best laid plans had worked out.

And me? God's head cheerleader that never got to be what I thought I wanted to be? Remember? When we came back from the ashes of destruction, I thought I wanted to be the one God chose to tell all the world that there WOULD be life again after total financial implosion. Not only did I not get to, but we faced another round of financial frustrations ourselves because of the most recent economic implosion. We are again holding on by our bloody finger tips.

Suppose I had gotten to be the head cheerleader of my dreams. I am sure...sure...I tell you that I would have never ended up at the Blue Ridge conference. This blog would never had existed. The 'success' of the blog would not have spurred my brother to rally the troops and get me to this conference. We've only had the first session, and already I can tell my life is about to change again. 

 

New Mexico - October 2001

And so, tonight, as I wait to hear the coyote's call, I am thankful for so many things. I'm almost thankful that best laid plans often go awry. Maybe...my wrestling match with God is about to end?

There has been financial sacrifice by my brother, husband, father, and sister and brother-in-law to get me here. I feel the weight of responsibility to them for believing in me when I wasn't sure I was anything to believe in. I'm thankful that my husband's best friend told Jeff, just days after conference #1, that should I never 'need' to go to another conference, he'd cough up the frequent flier miles to get me there. I am thankful for Son #1 and his courage. How did a fraidy cat like me help raise a son who would let go of sure things and reach for far away possibilities that just might be.Where will he end up because best laid plans never worked out? 

Pecos, New Mexico - October 2011

I am thankful for you. It is a miracle that I have averaged 600 hits a week when my primary way of spreading word about this blog has only been Facebook and word-of-mouth support. Preposterous isn't it – what can happen when best laid plans lay in ruins at our feet.

Proverbs 16:9 (NAS)

The mind of man plans his way, But the LORD directs his steps.

Proverbs 20:24 (NIV)

A man's steps are directed by the LORD. How then can anyone understand his own way?

Me... A High Plains Drifter.....

Courtesy Mad Penguin Creative

I survived the plane rides and the subsequent 90 minute journey to my final destination. I felt as if I was caught in some surreal suspended animation. As the miles evaporated below me, it seemed I was watching it happen through someone else's eyes.

I would have pinched myself to make sure it was real. Even if I'd tried, I think I was too numb for the experiment to have succeeded. My mom adored flying even tho' she only flew twice in her 8 decades. What a pity that I didn't get that gene.

Pecos, NM

It is quiet now. I am far from the hustle and bustle of the airports and my normal life. I don't think I've heard this kind of quiet since my childhood days on the Outer Banks of NC. Then, as now, the loudest night noise was the wind, and the brightest night light was the moon. I am waiting for the howl of coyotes or the strains of the theme song to The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. So far, the quiet echoes into infinity.

I am both peaceful and on edge simultaneously. It has been 2 decades since I was this 'alone'. I have never been this alone in this kind of quiet. In an ironic twist, my early arrival provided for yet another singular experience. I am the ONLY resident of this entire inn. I think there are some folks in the next lodge over on the conference center grounds. But, for tonight, I have the place to myself. Ain't that special?

Courtesy Mad Penguin Creative

Have I been signed up for fraidy cat boot camp and didn't know it? Maybe it is a good thing I don't hear coyotes howling in the wind. If Jack Nicholson shows up, I'm OUT of here! If Clint Eastwood shows up, I could be persuaded to stay. Would you believe it? On cue, the coyotes just started singing at the moon. It's a conspiracy, I tell ya!

I wonder what tomorrow will hold. What have I really come here to do? Ultimately, the trip was about pushing back the boundaries of my fraidy cat existence. Practically speaking, I am here to work on my 'craft'. Realistically, I am here to continue to prove to myself that I can keep walking toward the me I've always wanted to be and that in the process, I will walk, and write, my way back to God.

Last May, I arrived at the writer's conference on the east coast so rattled I locked my keys in my car before I got to my room. I guess I've grown up a bit since then. I'm all tucked into the lodge I own for the night and have all my faculties and belongings intact, even the car keys. Ok...I guess we could debate about my grip on my faculties, but humor me here. It has been a long day.

Courtesy Mad Penguin Creative

If you had asked me the odds on my being in New Mexico while Son #1 was in Australia, you know what my reaction would have been. I'd have surreptitiously snipped a bit of your hair in an effort to identify the medicinal herbs in which you had been partaking. Because the odds were zero.

What a difference a season of the year makes. He enjoyed his 1^st hot air balloon ride the same day as my 1^st post-9/11 plane flight. Wonder of wonders, I survived it all without pharmacological sustenance. Unless you count a Tylenol for a headache.

Courtesy Mad Penguin Creative

Son #1 is in Australia because of a single bit of information I picked up in one class during last May's conference. This blog grew out of a single thought during that conference. I wonder what gift this week holds and when and how I will unwrap it.

Tonight in the quiet chill of this high plains desert, I wonder, what is God doing...really? For the long dark season of loss, I thought I knew. I came to a point of concluding that, in the end, he was really up to nothing in particular when it came to me. And yet, in the worst of times when my soul was bruised and emptied, there was a fierceness in me that just would not give up.

I could hear myself in a voice from long ago. A friend and I were having much the same conversation that Richard Branson and his friend had the night his Necker Island home burned down a few months ago. I was giddy in love with the God I had grown up knowing. She was an indifferent skeptic. We were both waxing philosophical.

Courtesy Mad Penguin Creative

My voice echoed back to me in faint whispers: “There is a God. He is real. He does care about the minutia of your life. He has a plan for you, and it is a good, good plan. He put it into motion when he threw the stars up into space. He knows your name.”

Dear God, My name is Carol Anne. I'm a fraidy cat. Can we talk about that good, good plan?

Psalm 139:16 (Bible in Basic English)

Courtesy B. Creasy

...in your book all my days were recorded, even those which were purposed before they had come into being.

Phillipians 1:6 (NLT)

And I am certain that God, who began the good work within you, will continue his work until it is finally finished on the day when Christ Jesus returns.

Can't We All Just Get Along...

Courtesy Mad Penguin Creative

This last month has given me reason to stop and reflect back over our educational journey. I remember the day the church secretary took me to task about our decision to homeschool. She was anxious to see me put the kids in 'real' school, get a 'real' job, and rescue my family from certain financial ruin. It would have been a good gig if I could have gotten it. As we all know, I didn't.

Since a 'real job' was elusive, I kept homeschooling. At the time, I spent a lot of days wishing I could see the future. Then, I could show her what my kids would be and do in 10 year's time. The future is here. Look at us now. Would she be proud that the newly 21-year-old son of a fraidy cat, who has vestibular vertigo, is about to jump on a hot air balloon half a world away. He's in hot pursuit of his own personal bucket list. He didn't get that courage from you-know-who.

Back when we started homeschooling, there was a great divide over the choice. The educational world was awash in an 'us against them' mentality. If we went out in public during the school day, we did so apprehensively, apologetically, and fearfully. At least one person would be sure to ask if we'd been to the dentist and then look askance when we muttered that we were homeschoolers. I made sure no one had bangs covering their foreheads just to make sure onlookers could see that we didn't have a hidden 3^rd eyeball.

These days, the atmosphere is a lot friendlier. Sadly, you can still expect to receive petulant whines and frosty rebukes about 'socialization'. A friend's neighbor, a retired school teacher, quizzed her about her children's hygiene habits. The same lady would knock on their door at 8:30am with some concern or another. Mostly, she wanted to reassure herself that 6 homeschooled kids were up and at 'em. Just last week, I was in a public venue that hosts a regular homeschool event. One of the employees commented, “If they were in REAL school....” and filled in the blank regarding a perceived inequity between homeschoolers and traditionally schooled kids.

Over the years, I've known families who only homeschooled from the time their kids were in utero til high school graduation. I've also known families who had one kid in homeschool, one in private, and another in public school all at the same time.

Lately, one friend unexpectedly entered her school aged kids into public school after a set of twins were born. Over the years we had discussed her homeschooling journey. My constant reassurance was, “Don't worry...you can't break them.”

She recently messaged me: “LOL..you were always right. I didn't break them. They are doing wonderfully well in their public school.” I couldn't be prouder if I was the mother and grandmother to that growing brood.

As more and more families opt for the choice, fewer folks look at us with outright derision. Retired school teachers often respond favorably and say, “Oh, my family member homeschools.” A lot of homeschoolers are former teachers who left the system to educate their own kids. Take it from me, it takes us a while to get over our former jobs as we settle into a homeschool lifestlye!

We recently joined a church sponsored fitness center with a lot of retirees on the roster. At first, our presence during school hours gave a lot of them pause. They'd eye Son #2 suspiciously as we fumbled our way into familiarity with the equipment. Of course, it didn't help any that he had a scowl and hairstyle meant to evoke echo's of his love for heavy metal music. Eventually, I found a way to inform most that we were homeschoolers fulfilling his high school PE requirement.

As the weeks have worn on, a sweet, sweet thing has happened. The same folks who used to look at us with thinly veiled discomfort now brighten when they see him. Some of the seniors are helping him develop a mean game of pool. For some, I think he is becoming a link to their own grandchildren scattered across the country. That softening toward him started before a haircut quashed the rumor that he had a 3^rd eyeball in the middle of his forehead.

A couple of weeks ago, an unexpected thing happened. I was with a group of homeschool moms, only one of whom knew about Son #1's job adventure. She asked me for news which obviously piqued the interest of the others. As I explained, they reacted pretty much like everyone else. Gasps of excitement and interest erupted, and then, conversations quickly turned to other things.

I am afraid, however, I saw shadows of doubt or apprehension cross some faces. Were those initial responses of excitement quickly followed by some sense of inadequacy? Were they thinking, “Why her kid and not mine? Did I do all I could? What should I have done that I didn't do? Will my kid succeed too? Why, her son is only 20! What did she do that I didn't do?”

As homeschoolers we have a sense of propelling each other through doubt and confusion into confidence and success as we navigate this ever progressing educational choice. No 2 of us use the same curriculum in the same way or even at the same times. Success will look different for each of us on any given day. The success of one homeschool grad is ultimately a success for all no matter what the venue.

Courtesy Mad Penguin Creative

God's plan for our life has been so different. Not a single day has gone by that I have not wished for an easier, more well-traveled road. The choices that were good for us 2 years ago may not work so well next year. The choices that work well for you would be a disaster for us. Our successes might bring you heart ache in the context of your own life.

In the end, parenting in this rapidly changing, ever more confusing, fraidy cat world...is just plain scary. I need you, and you need me as our kids inevitably experience both success and failure in life. We won't make it as well without each other. Our mutual support should transcend the choices we make about the educational journeys our families navigate in any given year.

Courtesy B. Creasy

Knowing what I know, seeing what I've seen, today my heart cries out, why can't we all just get along? 

Ecclesiastes 4:10

And if one has a fall, the other will give him a hand; but unhappy is the man who is by himself, because he has no helper.

If He Could See Me Now

Courtesy Mad Penguin Creative

I give him grace when I think about it. He was young and sick. Too young to be as sick as he was. He had already been sick a long, long time. Life is unfair that way. Looking back, I can see that he spoke out of the frustration of his own broken-down, weary dreams. When I think of him now, I think of Sunday Ibok and Aibileen.

I think of the days when I will face a pivotal moment and have to weigh my words. Will I speak with grace and faith as did Sunday on the last day of his life? Will I speak as Aibileen did when she spoke words of courage and grace into Mae Mobley's heart? I remember the sting of his words and measure the difference in words harshly spoken vs words calculated to set the spirit free.

Courtesy Mad Penguin Creative

My family was fairly giddy. It was 2006. Jessica Kingsley Publishers had just released Voices From the Spectrum. The book contained a collection of essays written by individuals who had a family member with a diagnosis on the Autistic spectrum. It was the 1^st time I had ever submitted anything for publication. I did so, at the behest of a friend, with little faith in myself. The adventure had begun in 2003. The book was out, and my chapter was #22.

I was excited to share the news with an extended family member. He was a writer as well. He had a full-time job as a journalist for a small town newspaper. The money wasn't great. The paper was small, and the staff took a lot of ribbing because of lots of missed line edits. But hey, he was a 'real writer' with a real, regular paycheck for writing.

Courtesy Mad Penguin Creative

I gave him the 411 of how the essay came to be, how long the process was from submission to print. I excitedly noted that it was an international 'byline' since the publishing house was printing it first in London, UK and then in Philadelphia in the USA. The house had offices in Sydney, Australia and Vancouver, Canada as well. Presumably, my book would travel to those countries at some future date. It was heady, heady stuff for a fraidy cat like me. Still is sometimes. I just checked. Amazon has it in stock. What a hoot.

He looked over the rim of his too thick glasses and said, “How much did ya get paid?”

I chuckled knowing what was coming even tho' this was my first time up at bat, so to speak. “Two copies of the book!” I replied. “Not a dime other than that.”

Courtesy Mad Penguin Creative

He raised up to his full height, snorted, and said, “Huh. You aren't a real writer till you get paid....” The challenge trailed off into silence. We stood there awkwardly. It could have been so different. But, it wasn't.

I didn't know of Sunday or Aibileen either one way back then. I think, however, that they would have been proud of my presence of mind. My heart wanted to deliver one squarely to the root of his manhood in hopes that he would still be doubled over today. As it was, I smiled and took it like a fraidy cat in training. 'Perhaps,” I allowed, “you have a point.” Thus ended the conversation. We never really had much to say to each other from that day on.

I have to tell ya, I don't think of him that often anymore. Like so many of our family members who drifted away when we refused to live in silence about the monster in the shadows, he is gone as well. From time to time, I hear that he has grown ever sicker. Lately, I heard, he has spent some time in nursing homes. I'm surprised the end has not already come.

Courtesy Mad Penguin Creative

I've thought of him more this week as I face the fraidy cat in the mirror. I wonder if he knows I finally got paid for my work when a local magazine hired me to write a few articles a couple years back. It was a job made in Heaven before the economy took them under. Would that up my ante in his eyes? I sorely doubt it.

I consider what to do with myself as I continue this journey toward what I want to be when I grow up. Occasionally, I get to attend a writer's group. My obligations never allow that treat as often as I'd like. There was a day tho' when I shyly offered the group a couple chapters I had written. They followed along page to page as I read aloud. The room grew quiet. Small ripples of laughter broke the silence a few times.

When I was finished, I looked up with fear in my heart. One of the folks in attendance sighed, “If you think I'm going after THAT, you are crazy! Who can top that?”

Courtesy Mad Penguin Creative

The leader looked at me pensively. “Do you,” she asked, “know of a book named Cold Sassy Tree by Olive Anne Burns?” I nodded slowly because, at the time, no other work of fiction I had ever read came as close to perfection in my eyes as did that one. She continued, “I think you are holding the next Cold Sassy Tree in your hands.”

I rushed home with trembling heart, hands, and knees. “If only I knew what to do about the middle and the end,” I agonized. I looked in the mirror and saw his face. “Maybe he was right,” I thought, “I'm no writer. They were being kind to a newbie.”

Life got complicated again. I lost my good God. I almost lost my will to live. I completely lost my will to write. Somewhere in the cacophony of it all, I could still hear his voice echo as I became nothing and nobody with no purpose and no team for which to cheer.

Courtesy Mad Penguin Creative

Can you believe how much has changed in a year? Last year this time, I could barely get out of an emotional fetal position. Here I am writing my way back to God. It has dawned on me...I'm writing away from something too. I am distancing myself from the memory of a sad, angry, sick man who had probably given up on himself. With every click of the blog counter, his voice grows dimmer. My confidence grows stronger.You've had a lot to do with that, and I thank you. 

My confidence has grown strong enough that, in just a few days, I'll be leaving on a jet plane. That's miracle #2 in a month. In the span of a month, this fraidy cat mom has put Son #1 on a plane for the other side of the globe. Now, I'm gonna do what no fraidy cat has done post-9/11. I'm going through a metal detector at the airport – bionic leg and all. Wonder what I'll have to write about THEN? I'd laugh...but I'm too scared.

When I land, I'll be in the company of real writers. Some who get paid enough money to earn the admiration of the naysayer who could have empowered me but chose to belittle me. I've had my shots, so I guess if they bite, I'll survive. Before it is over, I hope I have begun to figure out what to do about the middle and the end. I'm not sure that poor sick fella will live to know it, but one of these days, someone is going to call me a real writer.

Courtesy Mad Penguin Creative

When it happens, I'm going to remember him. I am going to remember the choice he had and the one he made. And, every time someone tells me about a small victory in their life journey, I'm gonna make the late Sunday Ibok as well as Miss Aibileen's creator proud. I'm gonna someone else feel the same way I felt when Sunday tweeted, “Faithful,” and when Aibileen said, “You is kind. You is smart. You is important.” That, my fraidy cat friend, is a promise I intend to keep. 

Courtesy B. Creasy

I am humbled beyond words that you have come back again and again. I had hoped to enjoy 50 visits a month when I started this venture way back in May. Then, I hoped to reach 10,000 visits by the time I leave for the writer's conference in a few days. I am amazed. Thanks to you, I may very well hit 12,000 visits before the conference begins. I guess....there are a lot of fraidy cats out there looking for a place to call home. Welcome home, fraidy cat. Welcome home. Love you long and strong. See you soon!

Aibileen, Mae Mobley, and Me

Courtesy A. Hughes

Few works of fiction have affected me as deeply as did Kathryn Stockett's masterpiece, The Help. In fact, only 2 others have remained interwoven in the fiber of my being besides hers: Cold Sassy Tree (Olive Anne Burns – 1984) and Poisonwood Bible (Barbara Kingsolver – 1998). In each case, I did not want the books to end.

Inwardly, I wanted to weep as I slowly turned the last pages. How I loathed the coming of the last one because I would leave my new, old friends behind. I wanted, maybe even needed, to take the characters with me into my future. Their stories had become interwoven with my life story. Such is the power of the written word.

I was barely a chapter into Stockett's book when the tears were slipping down my cheeks in a slow parade of wonder. My heart was beating fast enough that I might as well have been on a treadmill. All I could think was, “OH! When I grow up....these words are the kind I want to write!” I continued to marvel every time I turned a page. I marveled...and I quaked with fear. I'm well into my 5^th decade. Have I run out of time before I even let myself admit the truth?

Courtesy Mad Penguin Creative

I once had an artist tell me that painting could be painful. As she explained, it is difficult to get colors mixed so that the artist can reproduce what she sees in her mind's eye. At the time, I had not admitted the truth to myself. It was easy to roll my inner set of eyeballs and think, “How insufferably dramatic can you be!”

By the time I cracked open the story of Aibileen's life, I had opened my own Pandora's box of creativity. I understood what the artist meant. Our canvases and mediums are different, but, oh, the agony of re-creating for the world what I see and hear with my heart.

Without practicing restraint, I could have doubled over from the intensity of emotions that welled up within me as the words drizzled off the page and into my soul. The feeling only intensified as Stockett's characters unfolded page by page. I want MY words to live up to that standard! My bones ache with the want of it. 

As I recently told a cousin, “I'm really good with beginnings...it is the middle and the end I struggle with!” Oh, to overcome the fraidy cat in me that says I will never pull myself together enough to flesh out the middle and find the end.

Courtesy B. Creasy

When Aibileen whispers words of hope, reassurance, and value into Mae Mobley's toddler ears, I leaned forward to hear for my own good. Aibileen is whispering the words she yearns to hear – and yearns to have her daughters hear. In that time and place, so much screamed to the contrary in her life.

In her singular grace, she plants them into Mae Mobley's heart when it would have been so easy to take out the unfairness of the world on her tiny charge. Mae Mobley heard the words. So does every lost fraidy cat who picks up the book or sees the movie.

“You is kind,” she say, “You is smart. You is important.” (p. 521 - The Help)

We rarely fork out the money for a movie...not even for Netflix. My husband wisely knew there was one movie we could not miss. The tears began within the 1^st 5 minutes and continued almost unabated until the last credit rolled. I ached for the Aibileens and Mae Mobleys of the world. I ached for the fraidy cats who have no Aibileen to remind them that they are of a value far more than rubies and gold.

Courtesy Christian Jones Hooker

I've been slower to write this last week or so. I'm scared to take time off. Altho' the clicks keep coming and it gives some of you time to catch up on posts you haven't read, the truth is, momentum slows a bit more for every day without a post. (You know how addicted I am to that counter! It's official, chocolate is now my #2 addiction.)

I needed time to rest. Time to walk through the fields of my mind with Aibileen and Mae Mobley. I savored and cherished the gifts they gave me. I fell asleep one difficult night repeating Aibileen's words to myself as I tossed and turned trying to make sense of my difficult life.

Courtesy Mad Penguin Creative

I realized that when I invite you in from the fraidy cat world and tell you that you've found a safe place to come home to, I have been trying to say what Aibileen said so simply. So many of us wait so long to have anyone tell us we are of value in this world and that our hopes and dreams are worth reaching for. 

Whether by accident or on purpose, we learn to be afraid of who and what we really want to be and do. We need a friend like Aibileen to remind us: we are kind, smart, and important. We need a friend who will challenge us to face our fraidy cat fears and become what our hearts long to be.

Tonight, I am thankful for so many of you who have come to read and reflect. I am thankful that many of you have been moved to share the news of the blog with a friend or friends. I am thankful for friends who always believed I was a writer at my core.I am thankful that my 3 fellas have caught a vision for the person I want to be. 

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I am thankful for a brother, who despite his recent layoff, has put his money where his belief in me is. Come Sunday, I'll be leaving on a jet plane to face 2 friady cats: fear of flying and fear that I'm not really a writer after all. As I reach for my dream, I hope you will be empowered to reach for yours.

Wanna know my dream? It's simple. After spending time with me, I hope you will leave feeling as if Aibileen just leaned over and whispered, “You is kind. You is smart. You is important.” Because...you are. See you later fraidy cat? I'll be here when you are! 

Phillipians 1:6 (Bible in Basic English)

Courtesy B. Creasy

For I am certain of this very thing, that he by whom the good work was started in you will make it complete till the day of Jesus Christ:

Psalm 138:8 (ESV)

The LORD will fulfill his purpose for me; your steadfast love, O LORD, endures forever. Do not forsake the work of your hands.

From Ashes to Diamonds

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The apple fell from the tree of life. The resultant tweets traveled the globe in mere seconds – thanks in no small part to the subject of the twittering. You had to be living in an bomb shelter not to have gotten the news by now. Steve Jobs, the king of Apple, is dead. You know me. I was thinking. Connecting dots so to speak as the media and internet exploded with the news.

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If he and Sir Richard Branson were not buddies, they were certainly contemporaries. Both were visionaries. Both wealthy beyond the comprehension of mere mortals. Both men spoke publicly of their private wrestling matches. Maybe those wrestling matches are the great equalizer, the great common denominator of life? No matter how great your wealth or how devastating your poverty, the same questions stalk each of us: Where is God, and who am I in him?

Word is that while Sir Richard casts about for an answer to the 'God' question, Mr. Jobs had found his answer in Buddhism. I can't be sure what went on between Mr. Jobs and his Maker once he knew he was facing eternity head on. I'll leave that to him and the one who made him and won't spend a lot of time sermonizing or hypothesizing about the end result. I hope they sorted it out in a way that even now has Mr. Jobs rejoicing at the creativity of the architect of the universe.

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Can you imagine what it must be like to be an earthly creative genius who is ushered into the presence of the creator of the universe? What would he ask when meeting the one in whose image he was made? Talk about a cosmic big bang! Wouldn't I love to be a fly on the wall if Mr. Jobs and the Creator God are talking about the intricacies of the design of the universe. Almost makes my brain explode to think of it!

I listened to video clips of Mr. Job's Stanford University commencement address last week and was mesmerized each time. The part that finally sent me scrambling for a transcript follows:  

 

“No one wants to die, even people who want to go to Heaven don't want to die to get there, and yet, death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it...it clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now, the new is you. But someday, not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it's quite true. Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life....”

As I pondered the statements of the rich and powerful, I checked out a friend's blogpost of 9/30/2011(http://marciabgaddis.blogspot.com/). Her words mingled in my mind with those of Steve Jobs and Sir Richard. Marcia's hope in her creator is secure. Her book, When God Comes Near, details her journey of faith during her daughter's losing battle with Creutzfeldt-Jakob's Disease. Marcia's thoughts about the dark days of life when forward motion seems impossible include these:

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“There are some days for all of us that are spent simply dying. We lose direction. We lose hope. We move through the day, respond to phone calls, think about what we should or could be doing and before we know it, we have managed to never find the productivity we longed for...Anne Lamott says ...'Hope begins in the dark, the stubborn hope that if you just show up and try to do the right thing, the dawn will come.' "

I've spent a lot of time dying in the last 3 years. Dreams, hopes, plans, and relationships of my youth are gone. I have been left to wonder: who am I really? Will I be a phoenix rising from the ashes? Will my ashes become a thing of beauty? Have I found or am I finding clarity in my season of loss and recovery?

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I have spent most of my adult years trying not to live someone else's life. Looking back, I'm not sure I've even come close because so much of being a wife and mother entails the needs of others. It has taken me over 5 decades to face myself and admit that what I really, really want to be when I grow up is a writer. Last week, I told my therapist on call that the scariest words I ever uttered were those.

What if I try and fail? Wouldn't it just have been easier to go on ignoring that secret voice within me than to admit the truth to myself and risk failure? I upped the ante by putting the words in writing for all the world to read which makes the fear all the more urgently tyrannizing! What was this fraidy cat thinking?

I am a fraidy cat. I am writing my way back to God in hopes that he will find me. I kept on reaching for him, even in the darkest dark, because I believe he sees me when I cannot see him. And, every time I sit at this keyboard, write another page or 2, and hit the 'publish' button, I drive back the darkness a little more. In the end, I hope that ashes will sparkle like diamonds in the sun.

Isaiah 43:19 (Bible in Basic English)

See, I am doing a new thing; now it is starting; will you not take note of it? I will even make a way in the waste land, and rivers in the dry country.